


who is in control?

by lostandlonelybirds (RUNNFROMTHEAK)



Series: Dick Rare Pair Challenge 2020 [10]
Category: Batman (Comics), Hannibal (TV), Nightwing (Comics)
Genre: Angst, Bruce Wayne Was A Bad Parent, Codependency, Corruption, Dick Grayson Was Damian Wayne's Parent, Dick Grayson is Will Graham, Emotional Manipulation, Hurt Dick Grayson, Implied/Referenced Cannibalism, M/M, Morality, No beta we die like the rude, Past Dick Grayson/Jason Todd, Post-Batman Incorporated (2012) Issue 08, Spyral was traumatizing, Unhealthy Relationships, Will Graham Knows, all kinds of fucked up, don't you know?, it's Hannibal
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-29
Updated: 2020-09-29
Packaged: 2021-03-07 21:20:02
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,222
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26724274
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/RUNNFROMTHEAK/pseuds/lostandlonelybirds
Summary: He makes all the wrong choices where love is concerned, and as time vanishes and hallucinations creep into sight, as every neurological possibility is dismissed, and the trauma finally catches up with him…He should be more surprised than he is to find out Hannibal’s played him like a fiddle, toyed with him on a cellular level in a way Slade had never quite managed, in a way Catalina had once intended.He should be more surprised than he is to be framed for a murder he knows he didn’t commit, empathy yet again an excuse he’s never confirmed or denied (and isn’t that biting him in the ass right now).He should be more surprised than he is to watch Hannibal’s lips curl around the words he already knows. But he isn't.It’s not the first time he’s lusted over a psychopath.
Relationships: Dick Grayson/Hannibal Lecter
Series: Dick Rare Pair Challenge 2020 [10]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1834162
Comments: 11
Kudos: 71
Collections: Dick Grayson Rare Pair Challenge





	who is in control?

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [Of Blue Birds and Teacup Shards](https://archiveofourown.org/works/23445811) by [SilasSolarius](https://archiveofourown.org/users/SilasSolarius/pseuds/SilasSolarius). 



> I am tired, and this is what everyone gets. Suffer my new hyperfixation.

He decides some time between Damian’s death and his. Consciously, for once. Before Bruce’s fists beat him down and break him. Before Jason’s harsh words crack at his perfectly constructed mask. Before Tim’s eyes tear at him further and Babs rubs salt in the bleeding wound. He decides when his name is taken. Both of them.

When he’s given a number and a title ( _agent_ , spit mockingly through Helena’s quirked mouth). When he’s left for dead and forgotten. When he comes “back to life” and Damian’s still dead and Jason’s done with him.

He wants to blame Jason, wants to resent him for it, but he doesn’t. He doesn’t care anymore. Dick Grayson would have cared, but he’s not Dick Grayson. He’s just a numb parasite in a person-suit ill-fitted to his new life, grieving the loss of the son he’d never been able to keep. And once he realizes that, once it sinks into his stolen flesh, he grieves his corpse. Grieves his life, stolen despite living. He grieves Damian and himself and Donna and Bruce and Jason and the death that follows him around like a disease, the pain trailing after him like a bloodhound nipping at his heels, and he realizes there’s nothing left for him.

Nothing left for a not-quite Dick Grayson, caught between the life he’d had and the life he wants. Nothing left for someone too traumatized to play soldier and too well-trained to do anything else. So he becomes something new. _Someone_ new.

He crafts his new persona in the wreckage of the court, with his great-grandfather’s name and a home of gray that he’ll thrive in. Fabricating a past is all too easy, altering details from his stint as a Police Officer from the BPD and his private detective work into something workable, something _believable_. And from there, it’s easy to not be the dead-him.

He’s colder, curt. Distant and rude so no one looks too close.

He’s disheveled, hair curly and unkempt. His wardrobe takes a hit too, flannel tees and jeans taking the place of skin-tight Kevlar and fashionable choices.

Will Graham is nothing like Dick Grayson because Will Graham’s never been responsible for his pain. Will Graham’s never been responsible for his best friend and son dying. Will Graham’s never been responsible for not one, not two, but _three_ engagements falling apart. Will Graham’s never had his life taken from him because he was too reckless. Will Graham’s never failed anyone and everyone at once.

Dick _likes_ being Will Graham.

It’s normal, his life now. ‘Will’ gets a job as a teacher in Quantico, all of his faked credentials so thorough that he manages to fool the _FBI_ (thank you paranoia) and it settles him. Talking about murder is familiar enough to calm him, without most of the baggage attached to the familiar, and he’s _good_ at getting in the heads of killers. Good at taking them apart and figuring out what makes them tick, good at reading their victim’s body language even in death, and the killer’s intent from that. Making leaps the evidence supports isn’t difficult when you’re trained by the World’s Greatest Detective after all, and he’s happy enough with the explanation Alana Bloom offers for it when they become friends (despite Dick’s best efforts) – a severe empathy disorder. He’s satisfied with it, content, until Jack Crawford borrows his imagination and Hannibal Lector takes it over with wide, crimson strokes.

He doesn’t recognize it at first, doesn’t see the glint in those dark chocolate eyes, the predatory gleam they always trace his movements with. Hannibal’s eyes follow him, and Dick denies the deeper meaning in them because he doesn’t _want_ to know. Dick wants to trust him. _Needs_ to trust him. He’s never wanted to trust someone so much, never ignored his gut so desperately. Part of him feels the darkness in Hannibal. Part of him feels the monster in him greet his friend’s. Part of him…part of him is a little bit in love with that, not that he’ll admit that anywhere outside the safety of his mind. From first glance, he’s prickly, but enraptured.

“ _I don’t find you that interesting.”_

_“You will.”_

And slowly, he softens toward his not-therapist, kind-of friend. Dick lets him in, lets him root through his mind and trusts the way he hasn’t let himself trust Alana, the way he knows he can’t trust Jack. He tells Hannibal things he’s never told anyone, rephrased to make it _Will Graham’s_ trauma and not _Dick Grayson’s,_ and Hannibal doesn’t make him feel weak. Doesn’t make him feel guilty.

“What are you running from, Will?”

“Everything. Nothing. People. I’m unstable, remember?”

They get close. _Too_ close. Dependent. Dick’s dependent on Hannibal in a way he’s never let himself be dependent. Not since Damian. Not since Donna. He trusts him. He relies on him. He _confides_ in him, and the growing fondness in his chest, the blooming tendrils of affection leaking into his toxic heart withstand his attempts at cutting them off. Cutting _himself_ off. He can’t separate himself from Hannibal, can’t leech away those bits of himself drifting between the unseen bridge of intimacy, tension, that Hannibal’s either oblivious to or painfully aware of and avoiding. Kissing Alana doesn’t help, nor does the way Hannibal looks bruised and bloodied as he stares away from the bodies. He looks vulnerable, fragile…Dick’s never seen Hannibal’s mask crack like this, never seen him anything less than perfectly composed.

_“I feel like I dragged you into my world.”_

_“I got here on my own, but…I appreciate the company.”_

And he feels the urge to kiss him, feels it burn deep in his gut, in the small fragments all the self-flagellation in the world hadn’t been able to get rid of. He’s not supposed to want people anymore, and he’s _really_ not supposed to want someone so…put-together. Talented. Charming. Respectable. Taintless.

At least, someone who _appeared_ taintless at the time.

_“You’re supposed to be my paddle.”_

_“I am.”_

Because it’s all a mask, isn’t it? An elaborate display of shadows and a light carefully aimed so as not to reveal the true nature concealed and cloaked. Hannibal two steps ahead, Dick lagging just behind, distracted by the way his name curls off Hannibal’s sharp tongue, distracted by the false warmth in his eyes and the way Dick feels _safe_ with him, _whole_ when he hasn’t in so long.

Courting death is an intimate affair – one he knows well from late nights on no sleep jumping off rooftops to feel something – but being courted by her master is something different. Because Hannibal is subtle, the cunning kind of predator slinking through the grass, undetected, shedding and changing his skin as he needs. Dick sees darkness lingering, but pretends he’s just projecting. Pretends he’s ruminating, trying to find fault in one of the few friends he has. The only person he’s truly let in in years.

So he contents himself with friendship, keeps Hannibal as an anchor to pull him back from the heads of every killer Jack hurls him at, every crime scene he can draw connections to his past from, and wonders. Wonders what Hannibal tastes like. What mask he picks at the edge of ecstasy, knuckles fisted in overpriced sheets as his body shudders in pleasure.

And somehow, inexplicably, they’re both drawn to the same child out of some sort of buried parental instinct.

Abigail Hobbs reminds him of Damian in a way that doesn’t hurt. She makes him think of bloody hands, spilling blood because that’s all they’ve ever known, of crimson stains on a soul from the sins of a parent, and it’s not a choice to love her as his own. Just like caring for Hannibal had never been a choice.

He makes all the wrong choices where love is concerned, and as time vanishes and hallucinations creep into sight, as every neurological possibility is dismissed, and the trauma finally catches up with him…

He should be more surprised than he is to find out Hannibal’s played him like a fiddle, toyed with him on a cellular level in a way Slade had never quite managed, in a way Catalina had once intended.

He should be more surprised than he is to be framed for a murder he knows he didn’t commit, empathy yet again an excuse he’s never confirmed or denied (and isn’t _that_ biting him in the ass right now).

He should be more surprised than he is to watch Hannibal’s lips curl around the words he already knows. But he isn't. It’s not the first time he’s lusted over a psychopath.

_“Why did you do it?”_

_“I was curious to see what would happen.”_

And so he constructs his own game, never questioning his innocence, never voicing the knowledge waiting to be released from his tongue.

_Hannibal framed me._

_Hannibal is the Chesapeake Ripper._

_Hannibal is playing us all._

Because he knows better. He knows manipulation, knows how to manipulate and how to play at being manipulated. He grew up with Bruce Wayne, after all. One tends to pick up tricks for dealing with men in power. He plays the victim. He tells them he’s innocent, confides in Hannibal about it and how he doesn’t know _who_ it is (and Hannibal believes him, if the little sparkle in his eyes is anything to go by) and he’s worried about what will happen. Worried about who will be hurt.

He’s unsurprised when Chilton is accused of the crimes, when he’s found guilty and Dick is released back into the wild. No one questions his innocence, because he knows better than to strike at the person suit with a perfect reputation Hannibal Lecter’s painstakingly crafted and cultivated over the years. He knows better, because _he_ looks guilty, and professing innocence by throwing someone as careful as Hannibal under the bus wouldn’t convince anyone. And it would alienate Hannibal, and that just won’t do.

Not when he can wrap the killer around his finger, break his life apart piece by piece the way everyone breaks his. Brick by brick, corpse by corpse…

He won’t kill, but there’s a lot of room for fun when one doesn’t kill.

And he does have fun. He plays Hannibal like Hannibal had played him, gets him to believe Dick accepts his darkness, gets him to believe Dick _possesses_ that same darkness, and it’s all too easy. He hardens himself to the soft look Hannibal gets when their eyes meet, forces the butterflies in his gut to stop fluttering when Hannibal cups his face, or grips his shoulder, or brushes against him (he never thought he’d meet someone as tactile as he used to be, and he has to force himself not to flinch because touch? Not something he’s had a lot of in recent years). He tells himself he feels nothing because he can’t. Hannibal can’t. Dick can’t either. It’s too inconvenient, too improper, too…

Completely him. Once an idiot in love, always an idiot in love.

It throws his plans off completely. Makes it all the more difficult to anticipate Hannibal’s moves, to find where he ends and Hannibal begins and _not_ get caught in a cycle of desires he shouldn’t have. It makes it more difficult to play unaffected, uncompromised, when he’s _beyond_ compromised.

The first kiss isn’t a surprise, not when Hannibal leans in slow and sweet and leaves Dick more than enough time to walk away.

The first fuck isn’t a surprise either, not when Dick initiates, aching in Hannibal’s lap, desperate for his poisonous touch.

There are a hundred reasons he shouldn’t do this, shouldn’t let himself do this. There’s Abigail, dead and destroyed for nothing more than knowing Hannibal. There are Hannibal’s victims, eaten and destroyed so as to never be found. There’s right and wrong and his morals and what he can and can’t accept—

And he tells himself this everytime he goes to Hannibal’s. Every time he prepares to end it, and end Hannibal, so he can get back to his solitary misery (all he deserves at this point). But the thoughts he needs and the weight of his lover’s sins, the blood and death and corpses, all disappear the second Hannibal’s eyes light up. The second he smiles softly, person-suit discarded, and face open the way it only opens for him.

And Dick cracks. He breaks.

He loves a fucking serial killer. Which is just great. Go him. All with healthy decision making, and good relationships.

God, he needs an _actual_ therapist.

So he keeps coming back to Hannibal. Keeps letting his touch burn like acid against Dick’s skin. Keeps letting his love corrode what little purity remains in his soul. Keeps letting himself be taken apart by Hannibal and pieced together as some dark design he doesn’t know if he wants to see.

It’s fitting, then, that the day Hannibal confesses, the day he admits in word the way he hadn’t before, Dick’s already decided he won’t turn him in.

“I’m the Chesapeake Ripper, Will.”

Dick snorts, and decides to offer a secret of his own.

“And I’m Dick Grayson.”

No other words need to be said. He's thrown his lot in with the devil, and at this point, he doesn't care where that leaves him.

**Author's Note:**

> thoughts.


End file.
